Human Experience Process

8/6/2019 Human Experience Process

1/43

International Journal of Parapsychology 2000 Parapsychology Foundation, Inc. Volume 11, Number 1, 69-111 ISSN: 0553-206X, New York, NY, USA

The Exceptional Human Experience Process:A Preliminary Model with Exploratory Map

Suzanne V. BrownExceptional Human Experience Network

In the early 1990s, Rhea A. White began extensive formal develop-ment and documentation of her comprehensive theory of ExceptionalHuman Experience (EHE). Consistent throughout her theoretical de-velopment, literature review, and prodigious number of scholarlyarticlesand documentation is Whites (1990; 1997e; 1998a) centralizing focusthat anomalous or Exceptional Experiences (EEs) have the potential tobe experiencedandsubsequently integrated into new personal andworld view contexts. At these points of catalytic transpersonal insight where/when the event is no longer apprehended as separate from theexperience of the event and the experiencer realizes that he or she iswholly integral tothecreationandresolutionof theEE theexperienceis potentiated, transmuted, andhumanized, andbecomes an ExceptionalHuman Experience (EHE). Likewise in parallel, the EEer and EHEerserve as broad categories of individuals who have engaged the EHEprocess. Yet the key difference between them is that the EHEer has alsopotentiated (acted upon) the experience, and in the process of potentiat-ing and transmuting it out there, experiencers themselves have beentransformed in some personally-meaningful way in here.

Portions of this paper were presentedas a poster session and invited workshop,withRhea A. White at Tucson III: Toward a Science of Consciousness in April, 1998. I

would like to thank Steven Rosen, Jenny Wade, and Rhea White for their most helpfulsuggestions on an earlier draft of this essay; and Carlos Alvarado, Fred Gurzi, EdPickens, Dick Richardson, Steve Rosen, and Charles Tart for their careful review andstimulating comments that served greatly to enrich this publication. As always, I amindebted to Rhea for sharing her courageous vision with me over the years. Pleaseaddress correspondence to Dr.SuzanneV. Brown,at 5801 Ganymede Place,Charlotte,North Carolina, 28227, USA, or via email at [email protected].


2/43

Whites general EHE theory is far-reaching in scope and thus spans

and interacts with several fields of academic endeavor, most notablytranspersonal psychology, and she is currently enjoying some degree ofrecognition. Yet theEHEtheory is rooted in thefield of parapsychology,a field in which White first ventured to better understand her ownnear-death experience. This experience occurred in 1952 andcatapultedher directly into the experiential paradigm of the EHEer and back to thedifficult work of finding answers to questions raised by the experience(White, 1997d). She took her questions to parapsychology because shenoted that anomalous perceptions similar to those of her own directexperience were being investigated by those academic researchers. Sheapprenticed, andlatermentored, in thefield,beingdirectly involvedwiththe field for over 35 years.1 During that time, however, she came no

closer to answers to the questions that had brought her there in the firstplace. Instead, the engine that came to drive research parapsychologyhad limited its range and influence over the years, and by the mid-1980s,centered almost exclusively on methodological issues, event-centeredproofs, and the investigation of truth-claims. The experiencers andthe sheer variety of their types of experiences had been left on thesidelines to fend for themselves.2

This gatheringinsight kindled andfused to become a critical juncturefor White. It marked a crossroads, a pivotal point, in her own EHEprocess. It was at this point that she founded the EHE Network in 1995.The Network was designed to offer a centralized vehicle for experiencesand scholars alike to report and discuss their findings about exceptionalexperiences, exceptional human experiences, and their aftereffects.

The central message of the EHE Network was that by going beyondthe phenomenological, event-centered issues into questions of personalmeaningfulness of the whole experience (before, during, after), experi-encers could become more aware of who they are, and the More theycan be. Thus, White set out touncover new insightsas reportedbyactualexperiencers rather than taking the word, words, and professional inter-

70 L IJP, Volume 11, Number 1

1. Exceptional Human Experience (EHE) theoretical and background materials can beordered directly from Rhea A. White, Executive Director, EHE Network, 414 Rock-ledge Road, New Bern, North Carolina, 28562, USA. Additional information and

resources are available on the Networks website, www.ehe.org.2. Some examples of types of EEs (potential EHEs): (Psychical) precognitive dream,clairvoyant vision, telepathy, out-of-body experience; (Mystical) ecstatic bliss, cosmicconsciousness,outerspaceexperience, religiousconversion; (Death-related)near-deathexperience, haunting, apparition, past life recall; (Encounter)UFO/alien, shrine/powerplace, ancestor; (Enhanced) in thesports zone,nostalgia, djvu,reverie,falling-in-love,remarkable coincidence.


3/43

pretations of third-party researcher and case worker reports. A subtle

difference of methodological focus perhaps, but one that would leadWhite and those of us who work with her to uncover fresh perspectivesabout a widerange of EEs/EHEsand to raise questions oncemoreaboutthe nature of reality and the cultural definition of the word anomaly.In the process, we would come to learn that within first-person writtennarrativeessays restedwhole patternsof definingcharacteristics,attribu-tive factors, and transformational dynamics of both EEs and EHEs.3

Many sets of EHE qualities extracted from experiencer narrativeshave been classifiedandcodified.They continue to be updated by Whitefor use across a number of projects (White, 1994; 1997d; 1997f; 1999;White & Brown, 1997). She was the first to classify and documentpreliminary lists of triggers, concomitants, and aftereffects (TCAs) that

surround direct (exceptional) experiences.In addition,other researchersstudies have been incorporated into these lists with references thathighlight vertical, in-depth attributes of one or more particular type ofEEandEHE(e.g., out-of-bodyexperience, near-deathexperience,UFOencounter, cosmic consciousness, sports zone). These publishedlists andclassifications and her continuing work to abstract and provide refer-ences across tangential fields of EHE are most notable in Part II of herjournal,ExceptionalHuman Experience.These publications haveprovidedstudents, scholars, academic researchers, and libraries with a centralinformation resource for extending interdisciplinary study, and for com-paring attributive features across the different types of EEs/EHEs,including those studied by parapsychologists.

Whites pioneering efforts to span and classify all types of EE/EHEoriginally yielded five classes (i.e., psychical, mystical, encounter, death-related, and enhanced normal) complete with respective sets of defin-ing characteristics, and well over one hundred nominal types of EE(potential EHE).4 In addition, we had extended the TCA lists to includelonger spans of time surrounding direct experience, and to correspondwith, and capture greater detail from, lengthier, more retrospective,self-reflective narratives which report suspected precursor triggers andresidual long-term aftereffects. As such, and with findings gleaned froma labor-intensive exploratory research project, we have uncovered thusfar a total of 678 triggers, physical, physiological, psychological, and

The Exceptional Human Experience Process L 71

3.Many thanks to Dr.AlexanderImich for sponsoring hisessay contests in conjunctionwith Rhea White and EHE Network over the years. His contests have helped greatlyto gather quality reflective, detailed narratives of EEs and EHEs.4. White has revised some of these classes in 1999 to add two new ones, and will bedescribing them in various publications in 2000.


4/43

spiritual concomitants, and their aftereffects (Brown & White, 1997).

Together, these qualitative TCA data, first observed and then laterextracted in analytical detail from scores of narrative reports, weresynthesizedacrosspotentialclassesofdefiningcharacteristicsandfurtherclassified into type. In essence, the experiencer narratives with theirembedded attributive characteristics form the original structural base ofEHE theory and the body of our early work.

For many hard-core parapsychologists, emphasis on experiencerather than on proving and/or modeling staged (laboratory or field)events will still hold no luster. Too, the inclusion of a wide range ofanomalies (perceived anomalies) such as dj vu, serendipity, encounterswithotherworldly aliens, sacredplaces, and things that go bump in thenight, peak mystical experiences, and even precognitive psi when it

holds only pieces of a puzzle to solve (rather than researcher-requiredelements), can easily be dismissed as out-of-range to the proper focusand current methods of parapsychology. As such, the baby continues tobe thrownoutwith thebath water, andadmittedly, counting,recounting,and defending counts of a particular type of babys toes over severaldecades brings us no closer to understanding the baby as a whole livingsystem, nor to discovering the environmental (contextual, related) fac-tors vitally important to its overall health and potential for a thrivingdevelopment.

On the other hand, hard-core experimental psychologists (I wastrained in the behaviorist tradition) summarily dismiss the notion thatthere even is a baby to study. Exceptional experiences, part and parcel ofany type, belong to the realm of clinical study, or in the hands of thoseother soft-core psychologists across the great divide who may be ableto help the experiencers when confronted with aberrations of faultylearning, inaccurate perception, and non-rational cognition. Instead,research samples are selected from homogeneous populations of nor-mal college students (ages 19-22) to ensure minimal statistical varianceor error, and to maximize potential for the replication of positiveresults across similar colleges and norms.

On the other side of the great divide of psychology are the majorityof developmental, existential, humanist, and transpersonal psychologistswho do consider the living health and well being of the baby and

recognize the qualities of the bath water as essential to overall develop-ment. Yet, for many of these psychologists the baby under study followsa predictable normal developmental life span, peppered with recog-nized and recognizableperceptual-cognitive shifts, existential life-crises,and adaptation to mainstream consensual values, truths, and realities.This leaves little room for EEers/EHEers who consider themselvesnormal, are recognized as normal by family, friends, and colleagues,



5/43

and who perform, on a daily basis normally. Yet, these perceptions,

even whole paradigm shifts of cognition, and the experiential crises theycan engender are likely to be initially depotentiated (i.e., ignored, dis-missed, rationalized, forgotten) by experiencers and society at large. Ifor when they are recognized and questions are raised, then expertauthorities entrained in contemporary cultural, consensual, commonvalues typically can offer a variety of resources specifically designed toadapt experiencers back into the fold.

Needless to say the illustrations above arecaricatures of worn stereo-types (as are sensationalist media portrayals of most EEers and EHEers)and the baby-bath metaphor is an overused clich. However, if I caughtyour attention then the illustrations will have been well worth theeditorial space. The sad truth is that most scholars consider their field

the only field of valid knowledge and have drawn ever-tighter circlesaround acceptable content, methods, and hypothesis testing to serve asrepresentations of that field. A maturing field may divide several timesover its history (e.g., psychology currently includes over 100 recognizedbranchesas defined by theAmerican Psychological Association)andthatis taken as a sign of growth and prosperity. Most scholars lose sight oftheir originating roots (philosophy, including all inquiries of science andreligion) in the zeal to define the boundaries of a fields territory andbranches. At some point we (as individuals and as a culture) reach acritical juncture: Do we continue to fragment, erect rigid boundaries,and increase the number of partitions in ever-tightening attempts atanalyses, or do we begin to (re)connect, allow fuzzy boundaries, andto communicate across disciplines in ever-opening attemptsat synthesis?Or(thereis always another or to considerwhen webegin to triangulateeither/or into both/and options) do wesearch to discover andreceive theinsight of a novel perspective? One that honors both analysis andsynthesis a cross-pollination of fresh seeds of information onefirmly grounded in trial and error facts in order to create and producehybrids of alternative hypotheses, methods, possible new vistas to ex-plore?

This was the dilemma presented to White when she ventured out(and inward) to createand then formalize her own solution the theoryof EHE, and the establishment of the EHE Network as a vehicle to

express EHE theory. Her story is an exemplar of the overarching EHEprocess. It always begins with an EE of some type, and in some sensa-tional cases these are spontaneously transmuted to EHEs, as hers was.Yet, the transmutation of EE to EHE, and the dramatic transformativeshift of world and life view that it may instigate (i.e., engender theexperiential paradigm) is only one key part of the whole of the longitu-dinal EHE process.



6/43

Too many people are having too many experiences that fall outside

the statistically-generated Bell Curves that depict and illustrate thenorms of everyday life experience. Both personal and cultural defini-tions of reality (that is, personal experience nested within cultural expe-rience) are limited and insufficient to capture the unique predicament ofthe EEer and the EHEer. Yet, it is these very exceptions to the rule thatopen new paradigms and, if potentiated, add remarkably to the qualityof life. Exceptional human experiencers, one by one, are discovering thevalue of quality as well as the quantitative rule (ruler) that reveres andvenerates safety in numbers alone. This marking of renewed balancebetween qualitative and quantitative experience is best measured in thewords of experiencers who have repeatedly visualized, in one form oranother, a new dawning of conscious awareness an evolution of

humankind, so to speak. Based on these individuals symphonic notes,the collected (and collective) words have been shared, analyzed, andsynthesized across individual narrative accounts. As such, they provide asourceof real-life human exploration,highlighting and underscoringtheinsightsanddiscoveries ofEHEersand the evolutionaryprocessofEHE.This paper presents an integrated, dynamic synthesis of findings gath-eredacrossEEerandEHEerreports.It isa mapof thelargely- unchartedterritory of anomalous worldsas they have been experienced, uncovered,and of the conclusions drawn by individual explorers, as described intheir own words.

The EHE process is but one cornerstone of overall EHE theory.White first discussed the possibility of a progressive, developmentalprocessuniquetoEHEers in1993(White, 1998a). Soon after submittingmy own essay narrative at the end of 1994 (Brown, 1995), I joined theEHE Network to first assist in refereeing a variety of journal papers, andsoon after to become a contributing editor for the SynchronicityConnection, a featured column ofEHE News. After talking with scoresof friends and colleagues over the previous two to three decades aboutour experiences (typically shared in confidential secrecy), I began corre-sponding in earnest in 1995 with experiencers around the globe usingthe technological miracle of Internet e-mail. These more casual emaildiscussions, togetherwith the largenumberof theEHENetworks moreformal narrative reports I had read by 1996, and with myown experience

of over four decades of EEs and EHEs, I could no longer deny theseexperiencers nor their experiences, nor continue to try to rationalize myown away. I volunteered for the post of the EHE Networks Director ofResearch and Development, offering my collective background in hu-man information processing, experimental psychology, motivation, andindividual differences (personality) studies, and as an EHEer. From thebeginning, theEHEprocess with its inherentdynamic flow as evidenced



7/43

by the narrative reports I had read, and its implied multidimensional,

interweaving puzzle captured my attention. It was a personal challengefor me, bothasa researcherand asanexperiencer. How werewe tobridgethe gap between our ineffable experiences (including simple creativeinsight)andtheformal logic/feedback flowof sensation-perception-cog-nition processing that allows little or no variance in interpretation?

AsWhitehadalready determinedbyexploring andadoptingmethodsfrom transpersonalpsychology, field anthropology, and interdisciplinarystudies, a solution for this puzzle might best be pieced together by closeinspection of the data submitted by the experiencer introspective re-searchers themselves. For those readers who recall the origins of West-ern experimental psychology, both classical perception andpsychophysics began with researchers from adjacent academic fields

using introspective methods to formulate nullhypotheses (Boring,1957;Peters, 1965). In fact, almost all innovations in science and technology,the arts and humanities begin with an EEers insight. This fact did notescape us in our early discussions regarding the relative value of intro-spective and retrospective reports (Brown, 1997b; White, 1998b).

Using this rationale, each narrative report is viewed as a research(case) study onto itself with the experimenter and the experiencer beingone and the same. Introspectiveanalysis and retrospective synthesis (i.e.,Tell us what happened in your own words, what did the experience[s]mean to you?) are methods of a lost science, perhaps, but also of a lostart. White quickly learned that experiencers wanted, even craved to telltheir own stories in their own words often divulging for the first timein their lives to another human being one or more experiences whichmay have laid fallow for years, even decades. Because experiencers werefurther challenged to view their experiences in the context of personalmeaningfulness, more often than not, simply dwelling on this task alonewould fuse the direct experience, thus catalyzing and sparking far-rang-ing new insights (Brown, 1997c; 1997d; White, 1997b). In contrast toamassing narratives that simply recount the facts of direct exceptionalexperiences, the EHE Networks introspective-retrospective methodoften enlivensandrevitalizestherelativelyflat, dormantevent experienceinto the dimension of meaningful experience. Importantly, for bothresearchers and experiencers, direct experiences could thus be viewed

differently, no longerperceived asexisting solely ina vacuum, whereeachrepresented an independent stand-alone (statistical point or case) event,or a collection of similar events.5 Instead, these direct experiences when


5. See also Eugene Gendlin (1997); or check his website, http://www.focusing.org, forsubstantial efforts to define and apply a first person science of meaning.


8/43

we take them at face value exist within whole human contexts, includ-

ing baselines whichmark life streamsof steady stateeverydayexperiences(i.e., the experiencer-defined status quo) for which we could then beginto define a relative Ground Zero.

Mature disciplines of science already have their methods, proceduresand preferences for testing and analyses well entrenched. But EHEtheory, including the subject matter of EEs and EHEs, and gatheringpieces of a huge puzzle called anomalous experiences (labeled as such byboth experiencers and Western culture) had virtually no precedent inresearch, or in interdisciplinary, collective, cohesive scholarship. For ourexploratory research with EHEs it was vitally important to see first justwhat we were dealing with before jumping to anya prioriconclusionsbased on preferred procedures, comfortable research methodologies, or

experimenter expectations for the data and how they should work.

Evolution of the EHE Process Model

Based on our early reviews of narrative essays, we learned that notonly did they cover a wide range of types ofexceptional experiences, theyalso covered varying spans of time between apprehending the initialdirect experience and the submission of the written report. Essays couldrepresent spans of (hypothetical processing) time that ranged fromseveral days to several years to many decades. To set the stage for thepossibility of capturing an EHE process in any detailed examination of

narrative reports, White offered an outline of five graduated develop-mental (evolving) stages for us to consider, including descriptive titlesand prevalent themes based on longitudinal patterns she recognized asuniversal across EHEer essays and from reflection into her own EHEprocess evolvement over the years.6Together we adopted her outline,discussed it at length, and subsequently published a pair of complemen-tary papers in which we compared and contrasted both the subjective(White, 1997a) andtheobjective (Brown,1997a)viewpoints fortheEHEprocess. The five stages were designated in ascending order:


6. As White describes her original epiphany of the EHE process: [T]he idea was basedon my reading of 139 essays submitted to the 1994 Imich contest in a brief period oftime so that I was able tocatch the drift of the overall pattern aswellas [confirm itwithinmyself because] I had already begun to own and live from my own experiences since1993, and observe what happened as a result. I was completely surprised. [it] wastotally unexpected, not rationally anticipated [or derived]. (White, personal commu-nication, December, 1999.)


9/43

1. The initiating event/experience

2. Search for reconciliation3. Between two worlds

4. In the experiential paradigm

5. A new way of being in the world.

By initially designating five hypothetical stages and outlining theirprevailing themes, we literally set the stage for ourselves to begin toexamineandextractdistinguishingcharacteristicsrepresentativeforeachof the stages. Thus, during our 1998 exploratory research project spon-sored by the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), we chose to extractseveral variables in addition to those direct experience TCAs specifically

requestedby IONS(Brown& White,1997).7We notedthat, for selectedvariables pertaining to time spans and acknowledged history of previousEEs/EHEs, experiencers introspective-retrospective emphasis seems toshift remarkably. For example, those experiencers who reported rela-tively-shorter spans (less than 12 months) tended to focus more on theimmediacy of the direct experience, detailing concomitant descriptivecharacteristics and short-term residual aftereffects. Those reportingprogressively-longer spans shed light on the experience as it is nestedwithin a dynamic (human life) context, including shifts of TCA perspec-tive toward long-term aftereffects and more inferences of personalmeaningfulness. Close examination of these additional data sets, none-

theless,didseemtosupportourpreliminaryhypothesisofanoverarchingEHE process, and suggest that experiencers apprehension, perception,and response to the originating EE do indeed shift over the time span,and with type and number of experiences.

Although we implicitly understood, and had learned from readingsome of the more advanced EHEer reports, that the EHE process wasnot necessarily limited to these five stages and could otherwise beextended out in a linear series, these five stageswere sufficient to capturekey qualities of the process. Specifically, the basic model wasdesigned tocapture the transmutation of EE to EHE with emphasis on how theseexperiencescan, and do, shift perspectives (e.g.,paradigms), andredirectlives when they are potentiated. We also learned that advanced EHEer

(longitudinal, retrospective, contextual, autobiographical EHE) reports


7.Several additional variables were extracted for potential further analysis and publica-tion including: experiencers age, spanof time between experience andsubmitting essay,changes in occupation, religion/beliefs, lifestyle; writers tone; process stage before/af-ter; and class/type defining characteristics.


10/43

were few and far between when compared to the inordinate number of

single experience EE/EHE accounts that the EHE Network had re-ceived over the years. At that point we surmised that advanced EHEerswere simply getting on with the business of Stage 5 (i.e., a new way ofbeing in the world) and did not have the desire to necessarily talk aboutit nor explain to others how an initial EE got them there in the firstplace.To do sowouldmean writinga full EHEautobiography describingseveral or many EHEs over a life time and tying these together in somepersonally-meaningful way, typicallycalled the EHEers calling and itslongitudinal import (see White, 1997c). These essays can be massiveundertakings for EHEers, and yet anyone who has written an EHEautobiography will tell you, the creative formulation effort in itself is arichly-rewarding experience packed with additional insights often en-

gendering new EHEs (Brown, 1995). We also understood that the various modes of expression, including the language, symbols, andmetaphors used byEHEers arenot easilytranslatedtonon-EHEers (thatis, to those who have not at least once visited Stage 4 in the experientialparadigm).8 For the purposes of sharing our initial findings with otherscholarsandexperiencers, five stages were sufficient to communicate thedynamics of a potentiated EHE, including gradations of experiencer-perceived shifts of conscious awareness andsome of themore prominentcharacteristicsof subjectivemeaningfulness andobjective behaviors. Theoriginal 5-stage model continues to serve well as a columnar backbonefor a general developmental EHE process. Yet, for anyone who hasstudied EHEnarratives in anyscope anddepth, it becomes apparent thatwithin each of the stages there are qualitative sets of attributive charac-teristics that could be used to distinguish (more or less) one stage fromtheothers.9 I subsequently attemptedto capture, identify, andlabel someof those characteristic qualities.


8. See Wade, 1996, and Rosen, 1994, 1997, for examples of extraordinary efforts ofEHEers to express the experiential paradigm and its perennial philosophy over the agesand across cultures.9. In any dynamic process something shifts. That something is different in someway (i. e., some form) at each stage of a series of (progressive) developments overperceived time, and yet also that something stays the same at its core descriptive leveland can be used to compare and contrast dynamic shifts of form across the stages. For

example: The cake in the box is also perceived as (the same, yet somehow different) cakein the mixing bowl, the cake baking in the oven, the cake served, the one tasted andenjoyed for dessert. In essence, we could say that a label cake is the lowest commonqualititative denominator that dynamically changes in form over time and can still becalled the same yet different cake. In questioning what something is shifting alongthe stages of the EHE process, we could answer the experiencer is. In questioninghow experiencers dynamically change, we can only surmise the facts by nature of


11/43

In selecting qualifier labels, it was important to identify not only sets

of particularly distinctive and distinct qualities, but also to arrange themsuch that they suggest the approximate dynamic progression of thosequalities from first entry to stated awareness within a hypotheticalstage. Further, the labels selected should be generic enough to serve forsimple comparison and contrast of sets of characteristics across thestages. To this end, the original five-stage model was expanded ortho-gonally to include twelve classifiers common across stages. The resultwas a 5-column by 12-row matrix model design structure into which Icould then begin to map key characteristics for each of the 60 resultantcells. The twelve qualifier labels selected are:

1. Definition A synthesized description of the stage gleaned from

the experiencers point of view;2. Examples Keywords, activities, and experiencer descriptionswhich help clarify definition;

3. Search focus Key questions transmuted to the experiencerssearch for X;

4. Questions asked Common questions voicing fears, speculation,wonder;

5. Cognitive dissonance The dilemma between old and new per-spectives (worlds) which need to be resolved;

6. Depotentiating activities Behaviors, choices that may impede, or

thwart the process;7.Results of depotentiation Common aftereffects when the processis frustrated, or thwarted;

8.Potentiating activities Behaviors, choices that serve to facilitate,or enhance the process;

9.Results of potentiation Common aftereffects when the process isfacilitated;

10. Challenges Common pitfalls, perceived risks, new dilemmasencountered which need to be resolved;

11. Critical juncture Pivotal point, fusion of choice and insight togain novel realization;

12. Crossroads to next stage New level of conscious awarenessrealized, clearly reported.


experiencers stated aftereffects (their tracks) gleaned from report essays.


12/43

In the next section, I present the expanded EHE process model and

a detailed mapping of characteristic features gleaned from experiencernarratives for each of the 60 matrix cells.

A Matrix Model of the EHE Processwith Characteristic Map

Stage 1: The Initiating Event/Experience

Definition: The initial, originating Exceptional Experience (EE) is ofsufficient strength or potency to capture the individuals attention anddisrupt the status quo of everyday life activities. The EE may be one of

over 100 types reported by experiencers and initiated by one or more ofa variety of physical, physiological,psychological, or spiritual (i.e., intan-gible) anomalous phenomenological events. EEs are classified as eitherpsychical, mystical, death-related, encounter, or enhanced.

Examples: (Psychical) precognitive dream, telepathy, out-of-body ex-perience; (Mystical) ecstatic bliss, cosmic consciousness, conversion;(Death-related) near-death experience, haunting, past life recall; (En-counter) UFO, ancestor, shrine/power place; (Enhanced) in the sportszone, nostalgia, dj vu.

Search focus: Meaning of the EE.Questions asked: What just happened? How can I explain this? Am I

crazy? possessed? losing touch with reality? Who can help me under-stand?

Cognitive dissonance: The EE resides outside of the individuals every-daylife view or beliefstructure; temporarily (typically from a fewsecondsto a few hours, rarely more than a day) the EEer shifts his or herattentional focus away from baseline/steady state of conscious awarenessand the status quo is disrupted.

Depotentiating activities: Exercising one or several forms of defensemechanisms: denial, repression, rationalization, projection, and so on, in which the experience and its inherent conflict may be consciouslyignored, mitigated, explained or laughed away. Rigid compartmentaliz-ing of life and activities in an effort to revert to pre-experience order and

status quo; choices viewed as either/or, reality as black or white. Otherexperiencers and their experiences may be ridiculed with vehemence.Results of Depotentiation: The EEer shuts down to experience.Potentiating activities: Reading authoritative texts, papers; contacting

and communicating with relevantmainstream scientific, religious, coun-seling authorities; sharing EE fears and wonders with significant others;meeting and discussing similar types of EEs with other experiencers;



13/43

recording EE andthoughts/feelingsabout it in a personal journal and/or

submitting an EE account to the EHE Network; developing new inter-ests in TV shows, documentaries, books, research papers, World WideWeb to gather information about the EE itself.

Results of Potentiation: TheEEer opens to exploration and investigatesEE within thetraditional,mainstream world view; gathers a wide varietyof facts about the EE itself.

Challenges: To address the EE directly, investigate it further, andrecognize itsuniqueness within theoverall streamofeverydaylife events.

Critical juncture: Realization and insight that answers may not all befound within the mainstream world view (paradigm); that authoritiesmay not have adequate answers and/or the explanations are not suffi-ciently satisfying.

Crossroads to next stage: Awareness that there may be alternativeapproaches of exploration that lie outside of the traditional ones.

Stage 2: Search for Reconciliation

Definition: The EEer chooses to widen the search beyond conven-tional authorities and seek novel, alternative, and even unconventionalperspectives that were previously considered irrational and even absurdbefore the initiating EE. This phase is highlighted by active, sometimesfrantic exploration to discover novel ways of testing, examining, andcoping with the EE.

Examples: Exploring such alternative ideologies as perennial philoso-

phy, mystery schools, new age, theosophy, Zen, Tao, nature-based relig-ions (paganism); exploring such alternative health practices asacupuncture, regression therapy, massage therapy, homeopathy, chiro-practic, meditation/breath work; learning such divination tools as IChing, astrology, tarot, and runes; seeking out such alternative authori-ties as gurus, mystics, psychics, and channelers.

Search for: Meaning of EE in a new context.Questions asked: How and where do I find truth? Who elsehas had my

experience? What other avenues are there which can explain whathappened to me? Am I (my experience) unique or special? Am I justanother weirdo?

Cognitive dissonance: The search itself moves beyond the previouslyacceptableparadigmaticframework intonewcontexts/behaviors thatcanbe threatening,peculiar, bizarre, or exotic, in efforts to integrateEE intoa new, revised life view and to reset the status quo.

Depotentiating activities: Locking immediately into the first ideology,method, or practice that accepts EEer and EE; preoccupation/addiction



14/43

to tools, ritualistic practices and/or idolizing their practitioners (e.g.,

guru worship, abuse of psychic hotlines).Results of depotentiation: Wider search is discontinued and the EEerlocks and/or converts into a new, narrow framework with its practitio-ners. Locus of authority shifts, but the search and answers continue toreside outside of self.

Potentiating activities: Exploring a wide variety of alternatives, assimi-lating the best of what each has to offer; maintaining a balance ofexpansion and discrimination in questioning practices, tools, and prac-titioners rather than taking them at surface value. Locating a mentor,practitioner, network, or support group of fellow experiencers whorecognize theprocessandwillprovideanacceptingenvironmentwithoutdogma.

Results of potentiation: A personal shift of life view that desires knowl-edge over specific dogmas and the dawning realization that there may bemany roads to truth.

Challenges: To avoid the common pitfalls of guru worship (idolizinganother), inflation (idolizing self); to stay balanced with shifts of affect,activity, life focus; to balance dramatic life-style changes based primarilyon the EE and its shorter-term aftereffects; to not adopt a know-it-allattitude and/or spiritual bypass to counter concerns of family, friends,colleagues, or practitioners.

Critical Juncture: Realization and insight that all roads have sometruth; discrimination to separate the wheat from the chaff so as to gleanpersonally-meaningful answers.

Crossroads to next stage: Awareness that there are many questions andmany answers that go beyond the EE itself; that the EE served as acatalyst into other levels of consciousness and personal discovery; thatexploration of alternative perspectives is enlightening, meaningful, andmaygenerateadditional EEs; additional EEsaresoughtandencouraged,often testing a wide variety of tools and personal hypotheses.

Stage 3: Between Two Worlds

Definition: The intense search activity of the past stage(s) is muted orput on hold as the metamorphosing EEer to EHEer takes time out to

assimilate, digest, andintegratefindings into a newlife view, sense of self,and endeavors to get back to the tasks of everyday life. Observed as arelatively-lengthy, sterile, dry, dormant period as the experiencer subjec-tively vacillatesbetween the oldperspectiveandthenew, unabletototallyembrace the new.

Examples: Outsider, outlander, stranger in a strange land; walking afine border/line, crossing the river, caught between two worlds, locked



15/43

in irons (feeling stuck), on the edge of the shore/cliff ready to leap;

existentialdark night of thesoul, return to theunderworld (inner world),return to alchemists hermetic vessel for mixing, blending, and refining.Search focus: Meaning of experiencer-self.Questions asked: Which world is real? Where do I fit in? How do my

experienceand what I have learned about it sustain and fortify me? Whatwas that experience all about anyway in the grand scheme of things (life,reality)?

Cognitive dissonance: Neither the old restrictive view of the world northe new one that loosely accommodates the experiencer and the experi-ence(s) is satisfactory, yet theexperiencer feels that he or shemust chooseone orthe other and often switches between them.

Depotentiating activities: Minimizing previous EE(s) and prior search

activity, including any insights, discoveries, meaning, and short-termaftereffectsachievedaboutselfandalternativerealities; categorizingownEE(s) and quest as aberration of real life; re-classifying and lumpingall experiencers together and their views, methods, and tools as totalgarbage; returning to the everyday world and its activities with a venge-ance and zeal to make up for perceived lost time. Adopting the sloganignorance is bliss and/or one of several escape/avoidance behaviors inefforts to ward off/shift focusaway from EE(s) andspontaneousglimpsesof the experiential paradigm.

Results of depotentiation: Experiencer and the search are side-railed formonths, years, or even a lifetime. Long-term cognitive dissonancefesters, and chronic unease, use of defense mechanisms, and inertia taketheir toll on body, mind, and spirit.

Potentiating activities: Accepting/valuing the experience for what itwas, what it meant, what it shared, where it led, and entertainingpossibilities for where it could lead. Feeling more comfortable withambiguity, paradoxes, uncertainty, and carrying this comfort level backinto everyday activities, even when experiencer has no firm answers.Embracing any additional EEs and especially the meaningful insightsthey engender. Thoughtfully and empathetically sharing experience(s)with others. Striving to maintain a balance in life and life view.

Results of potentiation: Experiencers shift of life view incorporates thebest of both worlds, and accepts, assimilates, and integrates all life

experience intoa coordinated, authenticcollective representation of self.Challenges: To avoid the common defensive pitfalls, especially whenno new insights or meaning appear forthcoming. Understanding thatEEs are typically not delivered upon demand or willed into being bymerely requiring them at ones convenience. To find a personal comfortzone that includes a renewed senseof self. (Atthis stageexperiencersmayexhibit anyor allclassical characteristics inherent in thegrievingprocess:



16/43

numbness, denial, anger, negotiation,andsoon,whileanoldegoidentity

dies and a new one is being formulated.)Critical juncture: Realization and insight that the experience(s) servedas a vehicle toward a new level of conscious self-awareness and as agateway to greater self-discovery. Accepting, understanding, and inte-grating all personas of self into a more integrated whole, a collectivepersonality of Self.

Crossroads to the next stage:Awareness that one is greater than the sumof ones parts and that there is no need to sacrifice a portion of oneselfin order to be wholly oneself; that the EHEer does not have to chooseeither one world or the other, but may assimilate, integrate, chooseboth, and is thus more integrated, healthier by doing so.

Stage 4: In the Experiential Paradigm

Definition:The EHEer envisions and knows the world/Universe asone great, interconnected whole of living consciousness where artifi-cially-constructed boundaries of reality are null in the grand scheme ofthings, essential truth. Depending on point of entry to this stage,experiencers may be catapulted into it at any age with no prior EE/EHEcontextual anchors, discover it more or less spontaneously, and alreadyhave some contextual EE/EHE anchors, or return into it as a place forgathering inspiration, fresh insight, and guidance.

Examples: EHEers know that they have awakened, leaped intothe void, crossed the river, returned home. Life view encompasses

double vision where either/or dilemmas may be resolved withboth/and hybrid considerations, often spurring fresh catalytic insightsand transmutingthemto EHEs. Observationsmay include transcenden-tal ecstasy, inspired creativity, frequent number and/or intensity ofserendipity, patternsof synchronicity, good-luck, insights, discoveries,inventions.

Search for: Meaning of higher self.Questions asked: Where do I go from here? Who else envisions the

world as I do? How will I recognize them? What are our possibilities andextensions?Howdo we manifest them andshare them with others? Howdo I get back to that place?

Cognitivedissonance:The search that has brought the EHEer to a newworld pregnant with meaning, metaphor, discovery, and great vision isnot easily conveyed to those left behind in the old world. Initial sponta-neous entry (and often subsequent, early reiterations) is paradoxicallyboth shocking and desired.

Depotentiating activities: Reluctance to explore further levelsof aware-ness and/or entertain/select new lifestyle, pursuits, and professional



17/43

options that seem to further widen the gap between EHEer and those

left behind. Clinging to old-world emotional attachments while body,mind, and soul have crossed into the new world. Endeavoring to awaken(significant) others before their time.

Results of depotentiation: The EHEer locks into a routine that allowsfor larger world view, but does not investigate options further, norendeavor to increase overall awareness; remains emotionally attached tospecific people, values, and/or things; experiences aftereffects of deepsadness and loss.

Potentiating activities: Recognizing, accepting, assimilating, and inte-grating additional experiences into life view according to EHEers innercriteria for meaningfulness rather than tacit acceptance of consensualviews; recognizing other EHEers and mutuality of shared path; more

easily shifting personality preferences, vocabulary, actions, social inter-actionstyle as circumstances warrant.Beginning to recognize andfollowa calling.

Results of Potentiation: EHEer realizes that he or she has a uniquecontribution to make, purpose to fulfill, is an integral, dynamic part ofthe whole, the Universe. Additional EEs to EHEs intuited as signposts,becoming compass-pointers of life.

Challenges: To discover purpose and align with those actions, people,and circumstances that add to fulfillment; follow intuition; to maintainbalance; recognize, accept, have compassion and love self and others forthe essential who that they are. To have the courage to let go ofout-worn attachments, including belief-structures and any residual re-occurring patterns that no longer serve the evolving self and newperspective. To have the courage to return to Stage 3 (and even Stage 2,less likely Stage 1) when necessary to gather ones self as self may (onceagain) undergo a cycle of grief at loss (destruction) of a former egoidentification.

Critical juncture: Realization and insight that ones purpose/way isintegral to a larger purpose/way and that any and all actions, thoughts,emotions, imaginal desires are seamlessly interconnected within andwithout. Understands that perceptions are (largely) based on personaland cultural world view (i.e., maya), that cognitive boundaries (e.g.,I-Thou, subject-experimenter, cause-effect, life-death) are convenient

constructs for human communication only (e.g., symbolic repre-sentations, approximations of reality).Crossroads to next stage: Awareness that we (the collective All) are

dynamic, evolving co-creators of the Universe as the Universe dynami-cally evolves and is being defined and co-created by the we (All). Implicittrust that all will be as it is as well as (paradoxically)understanding that



18/43

as it is does not necessarily mean (then yet again it may mean) what it

appears to mean at any selected, perceived moment of time/space.

Stage 5: A New Way of Being in the World

Definition:TheEHEer forgesa personally-fulfilling,meaningful paththat reflects and sustains inner calling as well as outwardly contributeshis or her personal best to the world-at-large. Both (many, multidimen-sional) worlds are integrated within and without, represented (i.e.,known) as one world of an intricately-interconnected singularitywhere the EHEermirrors, reflects, aligns with theUniverse. TheEHEeris consciously aware that individual choices (core actions, thoughts,emotions, desires, intents) have the power to dynamically shape out-

comes (the Universe), and he or she endeavors to live through thatknowledge responsively and responsibly.Examples: The EHEer brings transcendental knowledge, in-

ner/outer calling, unique gifts back to earth; returns from Home tohome; as above so below, the macrocosm is reflected in the micro-cosm, after the return before the return, I am another yourself;chop wood, carry water; selecting an explicate order out of seemingly-implicatechaos; the organizing principle,Self/Universe is bothperfectlyhole and whole.

Search for: Meaning of the universal self.Questions asked: How do I best align myself/my purpose/my calling

with Universe? How can I best serve given my collection of unique

talents/abilities/gifts? How can I contribute to overall evolution ofconsciousness, including my own?

Cognitive dissonance: Experiential paradigm, transcendent awarenesshas revealed an abundance of extensions, branches, worlds of potentialand possibility and inner self-awarenesshas deepened, strengthened andcoalesced the EHEer to the very core, yet the EHEer consciously senses(with composed, calm urgency) that he or she must choose a path andget on with the program of life and living in the world-at-large.

Depotentiatingactivities: Reluctance torecognizethat even a seeminglyconnected and purposeful life can still carry doubts, fears, frustrations,and that these also can be signposts that leave EE/EHE aftereffects yet

unresolved, andthat serve as compass-pointersfor theprocess; requiringperfection of self and others; getting caught up in formalizing, control-ling the goal rather than recalling that the process leads naturally tothe goal.

Results of depotentiation: The EHEer may temporarily encounter set-backs, indecision by reverting to old outworn, yet familiar defenses;personal demands for perfection or desiring to will or control outcomes



19/43

stalls (sense of) fulfillment; potential contributions do not take form, are

not brought back to earth, new EEs are not recognizedor transmuted;long-term aftereffects of one or more previous EHEs remain dormant.Potentiating activities:Acknowledging newEEsandtransmutingthem

into EHEs by questioning meaningfulness; going inside to resolve oldissues remaining, includinglong-termaftereffectsof previousEHEsthatmay have been lost in the shuffle. Taking setbacks and doubts in strideand understanding that these are opportunities to evolve further; learn-ing new skills, meeting new people and integrating these contributionsinto the EHEers way (personal calling) as perspective shifts and evolves.Recognizing, respecting, and having compassion for our very human-ness, holes and wholes alike.

Results of potentiation:The EHEer is living, being, fulfilling, anddoing

a personal project of transcendence (i.e., has grounded inner calling intolife-worthy projects), and has the flexibility to shift means, methods, andtools as needed to accomplish it.

Challenges: To remain open to all facets of EHE, including thoseinsights, and circumstances that will enhance calling, and not to becomestuck in a particular method, means, or mode to accomplish it; to serveas a human embodiment of ones purpose/calling. To consciously, seam-lessly, reiteratively return to the operations center (Stage 3) to regen-erate batteries, while assimilating and integrating new (Stage 4)transcendental information as needed to resolve cognitive dissonance.To seamlessly (automatically) accommodate andfine-tune evolvingshiftsof both inner and outer perspective and awareness as they are presented.

Critical juncture: Realization and insight that there is no magic bulletor fast food package called the Truth, the Way to Enlightenmentnor does the EHEer self singularly embody (all) truth and enlighten-ment. That reality is constantly, dynamically being re-formulated, de-stroyed and re-created, and with that knowledge there is a responsibilityof choice as to where to place ones energies and service. That theuniversal self is necessary, integral to the Universe as the Universe isperceived through the lens of self; that alignment choices made (includ-ing no-choice) canco-create(havetheimaginalpowertoshape) potentialtangible outcomes. To transmute EEs to EHEs has more or less becomesecond nature; EHE is understood as humankinds first nature.

Crossroads into next stage: Awareness that dynamically, fluidly, organi-cally aligning, harmonizing, refining, reinventing the self resonates andenlightens throughout the universalvillage/kingdom, theUniverse. TheEHEer has learned for him- or herself a personal way to navigate,reiteratively re-negotiate, the staging areas of the EHE process in anypermutation as needed, when needed. The EHEer returns home sim-



20/43

ply to be, live, serve, fulfill and embody the matter of self, works, and

discoveries made along the way.

General Discussion

Before moving on to the individual stage by stage discussions tohighlight,andfleshoutsome of the key characteristicsandpivotal points,and the dynamics between them, I would like to alert readers to somegeneral observations that may add to their review of the matrix modeland exploratory map:

1. Each stage may be viewed as a staging area of operations flowrather than a discrete, independent stage, patterned linearly into a

stair-step series of relative less-than/greater-than intervals.2. Each stage includes both an inner, dynamic, perceptual/cognitiveflow, as well as is connected interdependently and transpersonallywith other stages via one or more transmuted, catalytic, pivotal,insights. (One could just as well argue that each sub-stage classifiertransfer or series of transfers challenges to critical juncture mark pivotal points within each stage.) Ongoing dualistic debatescontinue to rage regarding levels of analysis, and so at this point, Iwill just concede to the readers comfort level for weighing relativedegrees of structure (form) versus process (dynamics).

3. The crossroads for each stage could also be modeled as halfway

points between stages (e.g., 3+, 5+). That was my intent whenendeavoring to show both the fluidity as well as thediscrete qualifiercharacteristics of each stage. Crossroads involve the catalytic fusionof both decision and realization to reach (evolve to) a heightened(or deepened) level of conscious awareness.

4. As always when we work with EEs, and especially EHEs, there isthe problem of language, symbolic expression, and translation. Inorder to describe and communicate the pivotal, the transcendental,the numinous, EHEers must resort to a common language that canbegrasped andunderstoodbyothers. In ourculturethereareseveralpossible modes, particularly story-telling literary devices (e.g., alle-gory, metaphor, myth), art (e.g., dance, painting, architecture,

music), and science (e.g., logic flow charts, maps, mathematics).5. Readers will quickly note the change of language expressionacross the stages. These too can be clues for us, both as to our owncomprehension of the process and when used for communicatingEEs and EHEs with others and to different audiences.

6. Because this is a characteristic map representing a wide range ofexperiences and experiencer expressions, I have endeavored to



21/43

synthesize the flavor, color, and tone of the attributes withoutdetailing the variety of descriptions used to symbolize those con-cepts. For example, I use a more neutral Universe to describe theincredible array of symbols to denote the Source, UltimateReality, All-that-Is, God, Goddess, the Dynamic Force.

7. Language in the advanced stages of EHE is more fuzzy thannot to those who prefer crisp expressions of direct sensory tan-gible reality. I cannot help that, as these are the words and theexpressions gleaned from experiencers, and a major reason forsharing these data and writing this paper. Instead, one could ask thequestions of individual and cultural differences (preferences) re-garding comfort levels with fuzzy sets, or contribute to the artificialintelligence/cognitive science work being conducted investigating

them and/or other forms of non-linear processing.8. Indeed, most of the long-term aftereffects offered by EHEersinclude many such intangible expressions in these often heroicexplorer efforts to communicate experiences within the limits ofcommon symbolic language. Recall that the EHE Network solicitsonly (formal) written reports and we study those reports equally forcontributing value. The experiencer is not talking one-to-one offthe top of his or her head, nor does he or she have the benefit of eyecontact and other body language to further convey the gist of thecommunication. Nor are they recording a journal entry to them-selves or for a family member or friend. It takes courage (andforesight, and the ability to introspect, retrospect, and then tangiblygroundin intelligent, coherent, linear, written language) to produceeach and every one of these narrative reports and submit them torelative strangers and/or essay contest judges.

9. These experiencers are a rich, largely-untapped natural resourceandhave much to share with us in their own words.Their narrativescan be examined by many fields of scientific investigation, the artsand humanities, and have potentially innovative and useful applica-tions.

10. Scholars of religious texts, literature/arts, folklore, archetype,divination tools, mystery schools, and other fraternal organiza-tions that include rites of passage will readily recognize many of

these stages (and stages within stages) as perennial efforts acrosscultures to attempt to communicate what is commonly called thejourney of life.

11. The Map is a working, living document. These 12 classifiers areonly a few that could be used to differentiate the stages and thedynamics within each stage, and the 60 characteristics only a smallsampling of what experiencers have shared with us.



22/43

Stage 1: The Initiating Event/ExperienceEach of us will be confronted with an exceptional experience and

we will recognize it as such at least once in our lifetime. The questionhere is not whether it will happen, or when, or of what type, or where toplace it, but rather how we react to and deal with that initiating experi-ence (Brown, 1997b). From this frame of reference, an anomalous eventis out there until some one individual pays attention to it and experi-ences it as something in here. In the traditional jargon of humaninformation processing psychology (HIPP)we would say that the stimu-lus (signal) has crossed a critical sensory attentional threshold. By defi-nition, the instigating EE lies outside or beyond the experiencers

everyday steady state (status quo) of life experience it is exceptional.This does not preclude the fact that the experiencer may have had otherEEs at different times or in other circumstances over his or her lifetime.It simply means that this particular EE has some quality or measure,inherent strength or potency, to capture the EEers attention. Indeed,this is the case when EHEers, upon retrospect, often remark that therewas something different about this particular experience (the onearound which they focus their account) because it moved them to takenotice and investigate further. When we look at EEs as initiators intothe EHE process we are led to several thought-provoking questions:

What was it about that particular event that brought it to the

conscious attention (crossed a subjective threshold) of the experi-encer?

Why this particular EE and not others? For example, why an NDEand not a dj vu?

Which qualities of the event were sufficient to cross this attentionthreshold?

What are the characteristics of the threshold crossed?

What are the individual differences which correlate to higher orlower thresholds of attention toward these events and those exper-iencers who convey (transmute) them into conscious experientialawareness?

Can relative strength within an EE class/type, or relative relation-ships between different classes/types be measured (e.g., ordered,ranked, clustered) and/or graphically represented?

Can these qualitative (and possibly quantitative) descriptors help uspredict who will have an EE, and who of those will engage andconvey the EHE process more effectively and efficiently?



23/43

Within the context of HIPP, and noting individual differences of

attention and motivation, an exceptional event may be likened to asignal against the background steady-state noise of everyday life andits expectations of a predictable, status quo environment/world. In thisperspective, Signal Detection Theory (SDT) borrowed from communi-cation engineers and applied to processing psychology may be of somevalue (Green & Swets, 1966; Klatsky, 1975). Basically, in this scenario,the anomalous event is the signal, everyday life is the noise; the experi-encer is the receiver of the signal. When the event reaches consciousawareness that is, it is attended to, it spikes above an attentionthreshold and is recognized as an anomaly or an EE then theexperiencer can make a (conscious/subconscious) decision as to whetherto respond to (potentiate) it, or to ignore (depotentiate) it. In the basic

2 x 2 factorialdesign, Signal?Yes/No Response? Yes/No,individualsmay apprehend signal (anomaly) and respond to it. In this case a Yes/Yeswould be considered a Hit. For purposes of this paper, the EHEprocess is engaged. Likewise, the individual may apprehend a signal thatwas not sent and respond that he or she apprehended a signal anyway,a False Alarm (FA). The question of what comprises a signal becomesan issue in this case, particularly in laboratory settings where the qualityand/or measure of (externally-generated) stimuli often serve as inde-pendent variables. From an EHE process perspective, the sig-nals/events are just as likely to arise from the inside and/or directcausality cannot be established. For many EEers the very spontaneity ofa dj vu, eureka insight, lucid dream,or feelingsof nostalgia is sufficientto engage the process and often does. In these cases it is not so much thetype of the experience itself as it is the surprise of the out-of-the-bluequality of the event. To continue with SDT, when an event signal isapprehended and the EEerchooses not torespond, it isa Miss. Inthesecases, EEers elect not to engage the EHE process; in effect they chosenot to potentiate an experience for the time being or forever. Inretrospect, EHEers often cite a litany of fears common across manyfirst-time experiencers for this non-response stemming from personalpast conditioning and/or cultural taboos regarding anomaly, exception,or being different in some way. This is an especially-difficult dilemmafor those EEers whose feet have been firmly planted in the soil of

consensual reality for decades and who have abided by a particularparadigm (belief structure) that cannot accommodate the experience and sometimes cannot accommodate the very experiencers themselves.In these cases we could hypothesize that the response threshold is setinordinately high when compared to the relatively lower responsethresholds of experiencers who have had a number of experiences,



24/43

potentiated experiences, or one that was particularly jarring. The final 2

x 2 factorial cell includes those events that were both not apprehendedand did not elicit any response, that is, a Correct Rejection. From theindividuals standpoint the non-event was indeed a non-event. It couldalso be the case that both the attention threshold and the responsethreshold are set relatively high against spurious input and unqualifiedresponses.

Signal Detection Theory is useful to begin teasing apart the observ-able objective factors that come into play for the event to experiencetransmutation (attention/awareness of event to experience) and for un-derstanding whether the EHE process is engaged or not, and if so, how(reaction/response).The notion of co-varying thresholds (and their in-itial settings, and shifts of settings over the process) for signal and

response is especially apropos for its ease of communication with experi-mental researchers. Too, this framework could assist in creating newhypotheses to consider the EHE process in general, and to begin toanswer someof the more specific questions asked at the beginning of thissection.

One other model which is, perhaps, better known to personalitypsychologists may also serve as a useful conceptual approach to thesequestions. The Jungian-based Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)specifically looks at individual differences in experiential apprehensionand perception, as well as at individual preferences in reaction andresponse to perceptual inputs (Jung, 1954; McCaulley, 1981; Myers,McCaulley, Quenk, & Hammer, 1998).10Very simply speaking, indi-viduals have a preference or predilection for how they apprehend (per-ceive) the world as well as how they respond to, and evaluate (judge)those perceptions.11 In general, these preferences do not changesignifi-cantly, if ever, over an individuals lifetime. Usually, preferences becomeeven more strongly entrenchedas individualsbecome more familiar withtheir way of perceiving the world and making critical decisions about it.From the EHE process standpoint, this could reflect the status quocenter of operations for the individual (and collectively, mark the normsof consensual reality for a particular organization or a culture).


10. MBTI resources for testing, research, and application are available from the Centerfor Applications of Psychological Type, Inc., 2815 N. W. 13th Street, Suite 401,Gainesville, Florida, 32609, or from their website at http://www.capt.org.11. See Krippner (1984) and Rosen, (1994, pp. 167-178) for an illuminating look atparapsychology as a research community, that is, as a cultural entity comprised of fourdiverse operating styles based on a topology of perception and judging preferences.


25/43

Yet, in some cases, one or more preference factors may dramatically

shift along either perception or judging continua when measured overthe lifetime of an individual or pre- to post-crisis episodes (McCaulley,1981; also see Arcangel, 1997; Van Sant, 1999). In very rare cases, up toall four of the primary preference factors may have shifted when meas-ured in test-retest (longitudinal) reliability studies. This brings Jungstheory of the individuation process into consideration, and generalcomparisons to the EHE process again highlighting the questionsraised earlier and underscoring the value of longitudinal data. At thatpoint we must ask, what kinds of experiences can shift a persons prefer-ences so dramatically?One further note, the majority (75%) of individu-als in Western culture prefer apprehending and perceiving the worldvia their 5 classical (tangible) senses (Keirsey & Bates, 1984). This

disposition can create quite a cognitive dissonance for many experi-encers, particularly those who have been catapulted into the heights anddepthsofouter/inner space (that is, into a seeminglymysticalorcosmicexperience), or those who have encountered otherwise non-tangiblepeople, places, and things. Perception of realitys solidarity may also berocked to its very foundation when experiencers register a particularlypowerful insight, distant (time/space) recollection, or a numinousvisceral feeling sense that something is not quite the same, somehow,in some way. Note here that exceptional experiencesareexceptional, notbecausetheyareoddorbizarreeventsoccurringinavacuum,butbecausethey are exceptions to normal everyday expectations of an orderly,predictable reality as defined by the individual in context of the main-stream. I hypothesize that individuals with a strong preference forclassical 5-sense perceptual input anchored deeply in the consensus oftangible reality would be the least likely to apprehend and potentiate anEE and engage the EHE process unless the initiating experienceliterally ejects the experiencer off his or her moorings.

Because Whites theory of the EHE covers a wide-range of experi-ences from the simply odd to the incredibly bizarre (as defined by bothexperiencer and culture), the questions of type of experience, attentionand response thresholds, and individual differences are particularly per-tinent to Stage 1. We do not presume that the EE highlighted in anarrative account is necessarily the first EE the individual has experi-

enced. Indeed, advanced EHEers more detailed retrospective reportsoften cite several different types of EEs having occurred prior to the onethat is highlighted in the narrative, some of those stretching back intochildhood. All we can say is that there is some quality or potency of aparticular EE that, for a particular experiencer, has initiated a search foranswers about the EE(the mark ofStage1 potentiated) andthus engagedthe EHE process. As students of EHE, we can thus begin to look at the



26/43

complex factors that contribute to the indefinite concepts of meaning,

what is meaningful, and personal meaningfulness that are key compo-nents to the EHE process at any stage.Very simply speaking, all EEers and EHEers begin at a hypothetical

Ground Zero, the status quo, a relatively-steady state of a personally-functional life view nested within a shared reality of cultures consensualworld view. The dynamics of Stage 1 focuson fitting the experience (andthe experiencer) into an inviolate cultural framework. Activity centersaround seeking out respected cultural authorities and their resources.For particularly bizarre EEs, there may be no authority nor the authori-tative resources to provide an intrinsically-satisfactory answer. At thispoint, either the EEer honors his or her experience and stretches theenvelope of what is construed as acceptable authority, or they depoten-

tiate the experience in one way or another, returning to the consensualfold. At the crossroads of Stage 1 and Stage 2 (in between), the EEeronce again is faced with a critical decision as a result of insufficient orunsatisfactory information gathered from their search in Stage 1. Toprogress to Stage 2, experiencers must elect to question the norms ofculture and of what constitutes an authority rather than consciouslydenying the EE or their personal comprehension of it.

Although all EHEs technically begin with the experience of ananomalous event, for those experiencers who have already encounteredseveral EEs, and especially after having had transmuted these to EHEs,the intensity and even the necessity of Stage 1 quickly become more orless automatic. In essence, more seasoned experiencers may quicklymitigate, or totally bypass this stage altogether to return to more inter-mediate stages (processing levels) with which they are already familiar.This too may be viewed as a variation of the learning process for thosescholars who prefer to look at the EHE from the contexts of classicalpsychology, cognition, and development theory.

Stage 2: The Search for Reconciliation

Although theEEer hasalready endeavoredtoreconcilethe EEwithinthe confinesofmainstreamnorms,at Stage2 thesearch forreconciliationbegins in earnest. The major focus of the search is no longer about how

the EE and EEer fits that is, can be accommodated back into themore comfortable norm; but rather, how the experiencer can reconcilehim- or herself and the experience into any recognized framework thatcan accommodate both. Thesearch thus becomes relatively open-endedand initially the possibilities for potential reconciliation appear endlessand hopeful. For many, this is the stage in which the search activity ismost obvious and most easily observed by others. In a sense, the EEer



27/43

has declareda cause to understand the EE in depth and ismost anxious

to discover a context a place for that cause, one that will embracethe experiencer as well.Although the experiencer has more or less rejected the security of the

mainstreams easy answers, and feels a decided relief because of thatchoice to move the search process forward, it is at this stage (perhapsmore than any other) at which the EEer feels most insecure, mostgroundless, and at a loss. Reiterations (repeat visits) to this stage are notuncommon for EEers and EHEers alike as the experience itself, or theaddition of novel experiences, shift perspective (often rapidly and dra-matically) during energetic attempts to reconcile self to experience aswell as to re-anchor both within a satisfactory context. For many, thecontext sought will be a slight shift to what had been comfortable in the

past, similar to ones background and inherent leanings of the past. Forexample, those trained in the scientific tradition may seek out researchparapsychologists and their resources;12 those utilizing allopathic medi-cine may seek out alternative medicine and practitioners; those used toconfiding with a friend or family member may seek out psychics/otherexperiencers who have had a similar experience; and those who havefound comfort in a particular religious tradition may seek out a churchthat espouses similar beliefs, a familiar godhead and set of rituals andteachings. These shifts to reframe the experience (and the experiencer-self) within an alternative yet intrinsically, a relatively-comfortable world view aregraduated trial-and-error movements, and in themselves,may become a holding pattern for many EEers. From the perspective ofthe overarching EHE process, we see these reconciliation efforts asattempts to fit ones self and ones experience into an acceptable frame-work which is, as yet, still defined by others.

Again we need to reiterate that the so-called comfort zone (i.e., aninner sense of renewed balance, homeostasis, resetting of the statusquo) is entirely self-defined by experiencers in their reports and taken attheir face value as a qualifier characteristic. Thus, experiencers who havereset their status quo and discovered an inner sense of relief for makingan (any) observable choice which fosters (perceived) progress towardmeaningfulness may appear alien or even deluded to those who have notencountered a similar experience personally, nor metaphorically by

walking in the shoesof other experiencers.13

At this stage more than any


12. Charles Tart states that his website, http://www.issc-taste.org/ or T.A.S.T.E.(The Archive of Scientists Transcendent Experiences) was created specifically forscientists to debunk the stereotype that real scientists do not have spiritual, mys-tical, or psychic experiences.


28/43

other that experiencers actively begin to stretch old paradigms (i.e., a

former belief structure) while entertaining possible alternatives for newperspectives and contexts. Yet, unlike victims of natural disaster, crises,or trauma, the experiencer does not typically have the luxury of cultur-ally-recognized support groups, nor access to EHEer-seasoned practi-tioners. By definition, both the experience and the experiencer areanomalous, a-nominal (without a label) and a-normal (outside of normalrange), and the mainstream offers few, if any, supportive anchors thathonor EEs and EEers. This dilemma (cognitive dissonance and itschallenges), perhaps more than at any other stage, best describes theplight of theEEer andultimately what becomes another critical juncturein the EHE process. It also marks another major point of departure ofthe EHE process from more predictable patterns better studied and

understood by transpersonal psychologists. (Recall that the first point ofdeparture was the perceptual apprehending of an anomaly and respond-ing to its cognitive dissonance.) Victims of recognized traumas andrecognizable life crises (such as natural disaster, grief, mid-life, exis-tential angst) have a bounty of socially-sanctioned support structuresand recognized resources from which to choose. In our culture, EEerstypically do not. Further, ifno particular life crisis is immediately evident,then the ubiquitous label stress and its cousins may be offered as acausal factor. In this consensual context theEEer-initiatemay be offeredoptions to reduce (depotentiate) generalized stress (etiology unknown)to get on with the stuff of everyday living.14

Exceptional experiencers who chooseto potentiate an experience andmore or less have identified with the experiencer-self find relatively fewresources available within the mainstream. Rather than mitigating theexperience, the choice of Stage 2 has been made to consciouslyexplore, honor the experience, and to see where it leads. This is also thestage in which experiencers are most vulnerable to authorities or re-sources that are quick to accommodate the experience and embrace the


13. As Jenny Wade (1996, p. 277) writes eloquently about levels of functioning: Thisindiscriminate relegation of all nonordinary [non-Newtonian, non-para-normal]states to some retrograde status must be recognized as axiomatic for people withmainstream levels of functioning, since developmental theories are epigenetic. That is,

higher stages are inaccessible and incomprehensible to people functioning at lowerlevels of development, but the reverse is not true. Furthermore, higher stages do notappear to be higher to people functioning at a given level, but lower.14. For an insightful discussion into the missing link of EHE within divisions ofmainstream psychology, see Reed (1997). See also the books by Cortright (1997) andWade(1996) for recent developments in thefieldof transpersonalpsychology,includingthe introduction and discussion of innovative, holistic models.


29/43

experiencer. In effect, I suggest that this drive to attach to a teacher,

organization, and/or belief structure is similar to that of newly-hatchedchick who indiscriminately imprints on the first parent (e.g., dogma,ideology, guru) to come along. For the remainder of Stage 2 (andsubsequent iterations of trial-and-error testing) activities are centeredaroundtheissueofauthority ingeneral,andmore specifically whospeaksthe truth about these types of experiences and from where the truthstems. Healthypotentiationof theprocessbecomesa conscioussamplingofa varietyof alternativesas theexperiencer learnstosort thewheatfromchaff. By the critical juncture of Stage 2, experiencers have realized thatthere may be some truth to be gleaned from any or all of the myriadpresentations of truth encountered to help identify and explain excep-tional experience(s). The EE has brought the experiencer out into the

world in order to explore and investigate alternatives. In the process ofgoing out the experiencer finds he or she goes in to sort, to makevalue judgments and refinements that are intrinsically satisfying, and toreset the comfort zone. At the crossroads between Stages 2 and 3, theexperiencer becomes more or less aware that he or she may be the bestauthority on hisor her particular direct experience. The experiencer hasabsorbed and to some degree been absorbed by the experience andcan therefore effectively choose to define self by the nature of theexperience.Theexperiencer-self identityhasemergedandbeenrealized.It is also at this point at which we may observe EEers radically adoptingtheir experiencer identity more or less exclusively, and sometimes to thedetriment of the whole-self personality.15

Stage 3: Between Two Worlds

One of the best ways to define this stage is that it is the quintessentialcrossroads for the EHE process as a whole. In effect, this is where theprevious life and world view structures are confronted with new input.The key to the center of operations in Stage 3 is that experiencers mustbe consciously aware of both old and new positions before cognitivedissonance can be resolved to any satisfactory degree. In contrast to thelargely-extroverted (that theworld or theauthority is out there) searchactivities that are more easily observed in the previous stages, and


15. For example, those who have had one or more psychical experience may announcethat they areconsequentlya psychic,or those whohave hada mystical experience maywrite an authoritative book on the personal steps to enlightenment. In such cases,experiencers may have reconciled their Stage 2 experiencer-self, recognized their innersense of authority, and therefore, claim to be an authority.


30/43

especially in Stage2.Stage3 is characterizedby intense innerworldwork

to arrive at a form of resolution. This stage is perhaps the best studiedby post-modern existential psychologists and philosophers who maymark the dilemmas that roil within and the individuals need to do battlewith life crises.

Yet, there is an additionalbattle that, at least in the early steps ofStage3, is specific and unique to most EEers and newly-emergent EHEers.After the experiencer has more or less come to terms with, reconciledand honored the experience in some personally-meaningful way, theexperiencer-self must choose to return once again to the culture at large(or not). The individuals life view has been significantly altered toaccommodate the experience, but it and the experiencer continue toremain at odds within the mainstream view. The experiencer is aware of

the source of the alienation that he or she feels, and has come to gripswith it in the best way he or she can. Yet, this is not felt as the nebulousanxiety of being different, an outsider in search of a way to fold backinto the mainstream of life. At this point, the experiencer understandsvery well that he or she is an outsider and the reason is because of anexperience that has already proven itself to be a source of meaningsomehow, having been validated in some personally-meaningful way.The onset of Stage 3, more than any other stage, is the point at whichexperiencers are most likely to depotentiate their experiences, resort tooneormoredefenseandreturn(oftenwithavengeance)tothesafehavenof everyday life. The objective of this stage, as with all stages and theirreiterations and tocontinueon withthe process isa returnto life.The challenge this time is that the experiencer-selfhas been enriched bythe experience(s) to such a degree that he or she cannot go back to theold world as it was without sacrificing a significant part of him or herself.In recognizing that they cannot totally revert to the old, once againcoming face to face with the need to relieve the cognitive dissonancebetween the old and new, experiencers feel compelled to discover ahigher-order integral form that can better accommodate both. Thisdeconstruct-reconstruct dynamic is key to all EHE stages (and all lifestages) in which the experiencer desires more resolution, an aug-mentedreturn (based on the Gestalt tenet that thewhole isgreater thanthe sum of its parts) to homeostasis, to ones center of meaningfulness.

In essence, advanced EHEers reiterate that it is this stage (and sub-sequent returns to it over their lifetime) more than any other, that iscrucial to the overall EHE process. It is the crossroads of the crossroads,and as such, is absolutely necessary for physical, emotional, mental andspiritual integration, regeneration, and survival.

Many EEers will never get to, nor feel compelled to move into thisstage as a conscious choice. Entry into Stage 3 is accessed directly from



31/43

either Stage 2 or Stage 4; yet to navigate it successfully experiencers will

have felt the full strength of both Stage 2 and Stage 4. To make thisparticularly strong statement, let us return again to the questions ofrelative EE strength and individual preferences for apprehension anddecision thresholds discussed in Stage 1. White (personal communica-tion) recognized early on that even in the recognized universe of EEs(and their potential transmutations into EHEs) there were varyingdegrees of anomaly along a hypothetical psychological and culturalcontinuum called everyday experience. These statistical outliers to thenorm might in themselves be measurable (ordered, perhaps ranked) bytheir aftereffects. For example, few would disagree that a fleeting noteof nostalgia, a short burst into the sports zone, or a remarkable coinci-dence would carry the same inner-sense of weightiness and import of a

full-blown NDE, an OBE vision of a disaster, contact with otherworldlybeings, or the spontaneous healing of a morbid disease. I suggest that theshort-term (residual) aftereffects of such experiences provide clues intothese differentials by marking EEers entry stages. Further, the long-term aftereffects provide clues as to the extension, the staying power, ofthese direct experiences over the whole of the EHE process to theextent that it (the EE nested within the process) has been potentiated.

We have noted in our exploration that points of entry do indeed vary(Brown & White, 1997,both reportedandunpublisheddata).Ingeneral,for the majority of EEers and EHEers, the questing begins with Stage 1and proceeds more or less linearly to Stage 3 in the progressive develop-mental pattern described above. Of course, this process proceeds only ifand when the experiencer consciously decides (potentiates) that theexperience is worthy of being investigated beyond the answers andsolutions provided by the other authorities. In Stage 3, the assimilat-ing, testing, and integrating continue at deeper levels (i.e., inside, wellbelow the surface in the psychic underground), and is represented bythe dilemmas and challenges common to EEers and EHEers alike in theprocess of creative reformulation of the nested self within a new worldview. On the other hand, experiencers of particularly bizarre (alienabduction), sensational (transcendental), repetitive (similar type), fre-quent (dissimilar types), and/or long-lasting EEs may literally betransported into outer spaceand directly into Stage 4 the experiential

paradigm with little to no conscious forewarning. Individual differ-ences seem to play a key role in how the experiencer reacts to theexperiential paradigm (EP); these differences are best captured in theshort-term (direct experience residual) and long-term aftereffects. As wewill see in Stage 4 the EP is so diametrically different from the everydaysteady state of being that the first order of business for the experienceris to attempt to anchor, compare and contrast in some way the EP world



32/43

with that of the everyday. Thus direct entry or initiation into the EHE

process via Stage 4 will reverse the typical progressive developmental,quasi-linear stair-step process we have observed with Stages 1 to 2 to 3.Instead, entry to 4 reverts to 3, and Stage 3 becomes the (inner) battlebetween the worlds ranging across a much wider gulf than for thoseexperiencers who have already worked up to Stage 3 and alreadyhavehadfamiliaritywith,ora history of,EEassimilationandintegration.Simply speaking, the gulf (and the EEers level of shock) may be repre-sentedas thatdistance(dissonance)betweenconsensus Ground Zero andStage 4 apprehended in an instant, and contrasted to the relative subjec-tiveeaseofgraduated shiftingbetween Stages1 to2 to3 overmanyyears.

As stated previously, entry into Stage 3 is contingent upon, and maycome from, either the crossroads of conscious awareness that occur in

either Stage 2 or Stage 4. At Stage 3, the work of the crossroads ofcrossroads (the crucible) begins in earnest and continues throughout anindividuals lifetime. Neither the initial trial-and-error, the reconcili-ation efforts of Stage 2, nor the one transcendental, unitive experienceof Stage 4 is sufficient to successfully continue beyondthefull challengesof Stage 3. To catch the whole meaning of this stage, to honor the innerdepths of this stage, a minimum of experience with navigating bothStages 2 and 4 is necessary for even the first pass. For those who haveentered via Stage 2, they will need to experience, at least once, the EP ofthe unitive transc

Human Experience Process

Documents

Transcript of Human Experience Process